WHEN BILLIE HOLIDAY SANG by Grace Kwan
I’m gonna love you like
nobody’s loved you
with the rain flickering
against my parted window
and the sheets pooled
around my hips was when
I felt the first note
at the bottom of my stomach
that suggested it wasn’t
the bottom and there was more
mystery to fall through
than I could imagine
perhaps less the bottom
of my stomach than
the precipice of my stomach
and my first thought was
to reach for your wrist.
It occurred to me after
the party that things like
walking out of a party
with someone you just met
holding hands along a moonlight
river was an inaccessible romance
vignetted by searchlights
chased by people
I didn’t understand
with no hope of
participating in desire
until Billie Holiday
sang that note.
Everything I have is yours
you’re a part of me
what is it about her
voice that cleaves
the octave like an ocean?
my destiny so ardently split?
I think I understand
how you “love
music” without interrogation
as to genre or poetics
or school of thought
just the experience
of living from note to note
each breath lasting only as long
as it sustains the next.
